I recently tried out a biwiring vs single wiring comparison and came to the conclusion that on the whole single wiring provided the best sound for my speakers (Q Acoustics Concept 20s). It was a revelation actually, because for a lot of years I had simply accepted that biwring had to be the best way to wire speakers with seperate posts on the speakers....otherwise why were they there? Never thought it was just a 'trend'. Anyhow, I found myself thinking about the single wire way with bi-wireable speakers the other day and read about replacing the cheap jumpers / bridging bars that come with biwirable speakers. First I just made up a set of bridging cables using the same speaker cable I used for the main runs but then I read a Nordost pdf with instuctions for diagonal wiring. So I wired them as in the diagram (see link). However, I also found that Audioquest also provide instructions except that they do it a slightly different way. Furthermore, Audioquest state that (if you're not biwiring):

Quote:

For 2-way speakers, be sure to put the red connector to treble + and black connector to bass -. This is the only way to preserve the tonal voice the speaker designer intended

This is the opposite way to the Norost method...in reverse. So are Audioquest right? Is there a right and wrong way to wire diagonally? Would it really make a difference whether the + and - are connected to HF or LF terminals?

Also, if the cables you use are marked as 'directional' would it matter that you didn't reverse them for such a short run...eg for use as bridging cables. The Audioquest cables I am using are marked as directional. However, I would have to split the sheath around the four internal 14awg wires to reverse two of them. Would removing the outer jacket for use as bridging wires affect anything?

Should I fill the spade ends with a little solder for a better connection or leave alone? There's only one tiny little screw holding the copper against the spade and the other one simply holds the cable jacket.

Got a reply from Audioquest with guidance, which was helpful. Have now corrected cable terminations so geometry is now correct (oops..was right first time I did it and messed up second time).

Anyhow, I have listened with the diagonal wiring both in the Audioquest and Nordost configurations (reversed) and out of my wife, my immediate neighbour, a friend and his wife, and me, we ALL found that we could tell the difference when the wiring was switched. I was sure it wouldn't make any detectable difference at all and that everyone would get confused and not be able to tell but no, it really does change the sound, which is odd! I really would love to hear an explantion as to why this should be so. There has to be a reason for it. Not my area at all, but nonetheless, some kind of idea as to what is going on there would stop my brain cells exploding. It changes the sound, nothing else. My wife said, when it was wired the Audioquest way (she didn't know that), "it sounds like it is being mixed in a studio. All separate, but not how it should be. It's not like the other way. That sounds together and balanced and more space". Much the same response from everyone else as well. My friend, a year away from 70, could tell straight away, to give you an idea.

Oh, forgot to say, the Nordost way is the second image, and this is was everyone's preference.

The point of the jumper is to connect the LF and HF parts of the crossover so that a single drive cable from the amp can drive both sections of the speaker. In an ideal world, this jumper would have zero resitance, zero capacitance and zero inductance. A short flat plate comes very close to these ideals. There are only two connections, binding post to jumper and jumper to binding post.

If you have replaced this jumper with your homebrew cable, you now have a binding post to spade connection, a spade to cable connection, a length (albeit short) of cable, a cable to spade connection, and a spade to binding post connection.

I would be interested to understand how this can possibly be better than a jumper plate.

As for hearing the difference between the Nordost and Audioquest wiring, if you were looking for an example of suggestion bias, look no further. The connections are electrically identical.

There is no such thing as directional speaker cables. (Sound is AC thus constantly changing between positive & negative)

Due to the close proximity of the HF & LF terminals you could use bell wire with no difference to the sound. (This is because resistance would be negligible)

The twin terminals are for bi-amping (Having a separate amplifier for the Hi & LF speakers) which will make a difference as the HF & LF are isolated from each other. (Thus no interference between the 2)

Any difference you hear between connecting to the LF or HF terminals when linked are totally imaginary. (You did or saw the changes made)

Bi-wiring adds a small amount of resistance (Determined by cable size and length) between the HF & LF drivers so may alter the sound marginally. (Either way it is outside what the designer intended so should be avoided)

I would disagree about speaker cables not being directional! I had an experience after moving to a new house before, i knew that my chord silverscreen bi-wire cables had arrows on them and that they should point towards the source according to the chord website but setting my gear up i forgot and accidentally set one of the speakers the wrong way and after a short listen i thought that my speaker was broken - there was no bass and it seem that everything in the soundstage was confused after checking the wireing i noticed the arrows being the wrong way, turned it around and TA-DA! Everything was as it uesed to be! Explain that if you wish with your sience degree....

I would disagree about speaker cables not being directional! I had an experience after moving to a new house before, i knew that my chord silverscreen bi-wire cables had arrows on them and that they should point towards the source according to the chord website but setting my gear up i forgot and accidentally set one of the speakers the wrong way and after a short listen i thought that my speaker was broken - there was no bass and it seem that everything in the soundstage was confused after checking the wireing i noticed the arrows being the wrong way, turned it around and TA-DA! Everything was as it uesed to be! Explain that if you wish with your sience degree....

The only reason your speakers would lose bass or sound weird is if the speakers were connected out of phase, which you had probably done without realising it.

When you changed the cables round you took more care to make sure they were the correctly connected, and this is the reason the sound improved, NOT because the cable were directional. (Which speaker cables cannot be)

When you changed the cables round you took more care to make sure they were the correctly connected, and this is the reason the sound improved, NOT because the cable were directional. (Which speaker cables cannot be)

Or was just lucky second time around. You are of course correct, speaker cables are not directional

Since my amp and speaker terminals are easily accesible and its not gonna cost me a cent i have just done a little test. I put both of my speakers out of phase first and yes it sounded terrible no bass, i couldnt tell where the vocalist was inside soundstage and then i put everything as it shoud be just speaker cable the wrong way and indeed it sounded wrong - not as bad as out of phase but still wrong, there was a lack of bass, vocals where coming from far away behind the soundstage not much in seperation between instruments... I double checked it too so pretty sure i heard what i heard.